Boston Red Sox
MacFayden was signed by Boston Red Sox owner Bob Quinn after he saw him pitching in the Twilight League. He decided to give up going to Dartmouth as a pro baseball career offered him financial security, which would enable him to help his mother.
He did not play in the minor leagues but went straight to the Red Sox, making his debut on August 25, 1926 against the Detroit Tigers as a reliever. He was the first pitcher in the American League to wear eyeglasses, which corrected for near-sightedness.
After one more relief stint, MacFayden made his first start against the legendary Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators on September 4, 1926. He lost 5–1, throwing a complete game. In 1928, he was the Boston Red Sox's Opening Day pitcher, making his season debut in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. with another native New Englander, President Calvin Coolidge in attendance. He won 7–5.
In his five years with the Red Sox, he was a relatively mediocre pitcher with an abysmal team, though he did lead the league with four shutouts in 1928, a year he went 10–18 with a 3.62 ERA. In 1932, after going 1–10 to start the season, he was traded to the New York Yankees for pitchers Ivy Andrews and Hank Johnson and $50,000 in cash. Both pitchers were on the disabled list at the time, but the trade seemed lopsided in favor of the Red Sox. The speculation was that Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert was trying to keep MacFayden away from contending teams.
Ruppert might have been thinking of MacFayden's stellar performance against the Yankees on May 24, 1929, the year he led the league in shutouts. In a game he started at Fenway Park, MacFayden shutout the famed "Murderer's Row", throwing a four-hitter. He did load the bases with no outs one inning, but then retired the heart of the order, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Tony Lazzeri, striking out both Gehrig and Lazzeri.
Read more about this topic: Danny Mac Fayden
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